Chief
Justice
John
Roberts
famously
holds
the
public
in
utter
contempt.
He
spends
his
annual
report
ignoring
the
critical
issues
facing
the
justice
system
while
downplaying
the
judicial
ethics
crisis
or
waxing
philosophic
about
the
history
of
typewriters.
His
latest
bugaboo
is
blaming
the
American
public
for
daring
to
question
judges,
going
so
far
as
to
suggest
calling
out
judges
as
partisan
hacks
in
a
blog
post
to
burning
crosses
on
the
lawns
of
Southern
federal
judges
in
the
1960s.
It
would
be
the
sign
of
a
deeply
disturbed
mind
if
he
wasn’t
so
clearly
bullshitting
the
public.
At
least
in
his
report
he
paid
some
lip
service
to
a
vague
category
of
acceptable
criticism,
before
proceeding
to
lay
out
that
any
criticism
of
him
fell
definitively
into
the
unacceptable
bucket.
Over
the
weekend
at
a
Fourth
Circuit
conference,
Roberts
further
refined
his
“y’all
need
to
shut
up
and
take
it”
stance
in
the
wake
of
the
current
Term.
From
CNN:
Taking
criticism
over
the
court’s
opinions,
Roberts
said,
is
par
for
the
course.
But
the
chief
justice
also
said
that
“usually”
such
criticism
has
more
to
do
with
the
fact
that
a
party
lost
rather
than
any
sense
they
didn’t
get
a
fair
hearing.“It’s
not
the
judge’s
fault
that
a
correct
interpretation
of
the
law
meant
that,
no,
you
don’t
get
to
do
this,”
Roberts
said.
“If
it’s
just
venting
because
you
lost,
then
that’s
not
terribly
helpful.”
If
you
have
a
problem
with
the
Court,
it’s
because
you
lost
and
you’re
just
venting.
It’s
hard
to
imagine
what
the
acceptable
criticism
column
even
looks
like
once
criticism
is
dismissed
out
of
hand
as
venting.
Back
in
the
day,
Amy
Coney
Barrett
chided
critics
by
demanding
they
engage
with
the
written
opinion.
While
always
a
bogus
cop
out
in
a
shadow
docket
world,
at
least
she
once
hinted
that
the
courts
would
deal
with
substantive
criticism
in
good
faith.
Fast
forward
to
last
Friday,
and
ACB
blows
off
Justice
Jackson’s
dissent
with
this:
This
is
gibberish.
To
be
clear,
what
so
frustrates
Barrett
about
the
Jackson
dissent
is
that
the
majority
can’t
cobble
together
a
coherent
answer.
Which
is
why
they
prefer
“not
dwell”
on
it.
Universal
injunctions
are
“bad”
to
the
extent
we
let
litigants
astroturf
their
way
into
binding
the
whole
nation
from
a
lonely
Amarillo
courthouse.
There
are
reforms
that
can
address
that
(e.g.,
requiring
three-judge
multidistrict
panels
to
issue
such
broad
injunctive
relief)
but
the
Supreme
Court
did
none
of
that
and
instead
just
magicked
away
the
tool
entirely
despite
being
blessed
by
volumes
upon
volumes
of
precedent.
The
majority
ignores
that
history
by
claiming
these
injunctions
didn’t
happen
back
when
it
took
six
days
to
travel
across
state
lines
by
horse
and
buggy
and
the
government
lacked
the
power
to
systematically
impose
blanket
constitutional
violations
at
light
speed.
Jackson
explains
that
this
death
grip
elevation
of
anachronism
effectively
removes
the
judiciary
from
the
system
of
checks
and
balances
—
especially
in
a
case
implicating
civil
rights
where
the
government
can
rely
on
practical
barriers
to
a
courthouse
as
a
means
of
avoiding
compliance.
To
which
Barrett
declares
with
all
her
academic
bona
fides…
nuh-uh.
It’s
an
embarrassing
sidestep
unbecoming
the
Court,
but
it
does
confirm
that
the
John
Roberts
school
of
“all
criticism
is
unacceptable”
has
taken
root
even
among
the
justices
themselves.
But
while
the
Chief
was
at
it,
he
also
joked
about
the
Court’s
tradition
of
dumping
its
hottest
of
garbage
decisions
on
the
last
day
before
bolting
out
of
town.
“Things
were
a
little
crunched
toward
the
end
this
year,”
Roberts
said,
suggesting
the
court
might
“try
to
space
it
out
a
little
better
next
year,
I
suppose.”
Roberts
doesn’t
believe
any
of
this
shit,
but
assumes
you’re
too
stupid
to
question
it.
Joe
Patrice is
a
senior
editor
at
Above
the
Law
and
co-host
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
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